Inflections
by ObliviousTrace
Summary: Falling in love hurts. Falling out of love hurts more. But what hurts the worst is still being in love, but not having the strength to continue. RHr


**Inflections **

Ron thought that it wasn't the things he did as much as the things he didn't do.

There were all the maybes and all the what-ifs floating around half-heartedly in his tired mind. He really didn't want to think about it, but it wasn't something that he could easily avoid.

She changed so much. She never cried anymore, just stared with her big, pain-filled eyes. He wondered if he should have kissed her more. Maybe he should have done the little things, like brushed her hair for her, or making her dinner once in a while.

It probably was the inflections, the way he said things. Maybe it should have been 'I _love _you', not 'I love _you_'. That might have made a difference.

Levi_o_sa, not Levios_a_.

And for once, there wasn't a solution that she could find or a problem that he could fix. There were no books to consult; it wasn't something to be manipulated like chess pieces. Instead, it was long stretches of silence, endless nights, cold cups of tea, and an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and tiredness.

Everything was different. The kisses were different, the sex was different, hell, even the fights were different. Though that probably had a lot to do with it.

They weren't the fights of their school days, blistering rows over little things, childish attempts at flirtation and demands for attention. They weren't the fights of their first years as a couple, huge screaming matches followed by making wild, passionate love and breaking several ornaments or lamps in the process. They weren't even the dangerous, heart stopping fights that came later, where one of them would walk out and spend a week or two with their parents. And the other one would wait, cursing the universe, and hoping, _hoping. _They came back. They always did. Then there were murmured "I'm sorry"'s and muffled "I forgive you"'s, spoken between tears and kisses.

Now, the fights were quiet and never had any resolution. Neither of them walked out. There was no passionate love making, no yelling. Which made it all the worse. Something screamed in the fit of anger could be forgiven; something said in a cool, calculated manner in the middle of the quiet left stains upon the mind and the soul.

Ron was tired. And Hermione was too. He could tell just by looking at her. It had been one long, drawn out battle that had sucked out all their strength. He just didn't have the energy to deal with it anymore.

The "I love you"'s were different as well. When Hermione said "I love you," it sounded weak and frail. Sometimes she began with "of course," and that just made it sound bitter. Ron's statements of love felt like an obligation, just the natural thing to come after one of hers.

They sat across from each other at the kitchen table, each cradling a mug of tea in their hands. They did this often. The silence would stretch and grow and swell, but neither of them could do anything to stop it. He saw her tortured eyes and strained face and thought that maybe he should wrap his arms around her and comfort her. That's what he should have done. But his arms were as heavy as lead and his heart felt heavier.

And mugs of cold, untouched tea collected around the apartment. Ron didn't have the will to remove them.

It wasn't even that he missed how it was, how it used to be, or how it should be. He just wanted it all to stop, to end, so that he could get some rest and stop feeling so tired, so _dead_ inside.

It wasn't that he was still in love with seventeen year old Hermione, or twenty-one year old Hermione, or that he didn't love this pale, twenty-six year old stranger. It was that seventeen year old Ron loved seventeen year old Hermione, and twenty-one year old Ron loved twenty-one year old Hermione, and now this pair of twenty-six year olds had no life in them left to continue.

He looked at her across the table and realized silently that she was beautiful. Maybe it was something he should have said out loud instead of just thinking it. She wore tragedy well, conveying breathtaking, lip-trembling, tear inducing beauty and frailty.

Ron breathed normally. His lip did not tremble. He did not cry.

He looked down at his tea and couldn't bring himself to take even one sip. He couldn't bear to throw it out either.

The day he came home and saw her suitcases, half-packed, resting on their bed, he at first felt nothing. No surprise, no relief, no horror, no sadness, no joy, and no grief.

"I'm leaving you." Hermione said simply, and he nodded dumbly. There was nothing left to say. She didn't inflect anything, he noticed. It was all perfectly level. No emotion. No bitterness. Just a simple statement of the factual truth.

Then she was gone, and he sat down on the empty bed and looked around the cold room. The woman he had been with for nine years, the woman he had been in love with for thirteen years, and the woman he had loved for fifteen years, was gone. She had walked out of his life, and he couldn't bring himself to raise a finger or say a word to stop her.

Feeling hit then. Sudden, but not unexpected. He had been frozen and dead before, and he wanted to feel that way again, because now he was dying, agonizingly slowly.

He stood up shakily. Brushing the hair back from his damp forehead, Ron went into the kitchen and made himself a mug of tea.

He drank every drop.


End file.
